Breaking Up the Boys Club

Once upon a time, with women's role mainly at home, the workplace was dominated by men. This created unwritten rules and standards, which defined who succeeded and who didn't, standards that continue to influence the workplace culture that we experience today. Where men hold all the cards and make all the rules.

So, does it matter if your workplace is male-dominated? Of course, it does. This means, knowing how to navigate and break up the boys' club culture is key for any woman in a professional environment.

While it is easy to identify whether you work in a boys club culture or not, knowing how deeply this affects opportunity within the company is a little more complicated. You see, although changes may have occurred, and it is much less deliberate than before, it is still a problem. What's even worse is, leaders are genuinely unaware of its severity or even notice its presence at all.

The way the boys' club culture works is because its kind of like the old version of a high school clique, and a clique is only cool if its access is controlled- exclusivity. Everything offered by it is dependent on whether or not you are a part of them. It thrives in an environment of secrecy with most of the decision making processes being made behind closed doors.

In boys’ clubs, women are scarcely found or not at all at the highest levels of the company's hierarchy. They may be excluded from business decisions or office activities with their voices and opinions ignored; even passed over for promotions and raises.

So? How do we fix it? This is certainly easier said than done.

First of all, do not become the constant whiner when you are left out, after all, network favoritism is a reality. It's not something you control, and while you can try to integrate yourself into the clique, it's a power struggle and could be a complete waste of time. Aim towards communication.

There should be a push to set a standard for communication in your team and take the feedback very seriously for you to be able to identify your boys' club culture and how rooted it is. Once that's been done, structural changes should be made.

Ensuring women are hired and promoted to the highest levels in an organization is key to breaking up the boys’ club culture. The bottom line, diversity is good for business and equal gender representation discourages gender stereotypes and promotes a more heterogeneous leadership team, with a wider range of ideas.

It is not going to be an easy fix, it will take time, planning, and lot of support from the leadership team. However, it's a power structure that we need to change to create an atmosphere in which women can thrive.